Although it’s been a while, this is the third installment of the “Some of My Favorite Music” series. We’re heading into the 1960s now, which may very well be my favorite decade for music and I think it’s time to start splitting those decades in half. So, this time, I’ll be focusing on the 1960-1964.

Etta James, songs: “All I Could Do Was Cry” and “My Dearest Darling” (1960,) “At Last,” “Trust in Me” and “Don’t Cry Baby” (1961,) “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” and “Stop The Wedding” (1962,) “Pushover” (1963) and “Loving You More Every Day” (1964)

Jackie Wilson, songs: “A Woman, a Lover, a Friend,” “Night,” “Alone at Last,” “Doggin’ Around,” “Am I the Man” and “(You Were Made For) All My Love” (1960,) “My Empty Arms,” “The Tear of the Year” and “I’m Comin’ on Back to You” (1961) and “Baby Workout” (1963)

Patsy Cline, songs: “I Fall to Pieces” and “Crazy” (1961,” “She’s Got You,” “When I Get Through with You,” “So Wrong” and “Heartaches” (1962) and “Leavin On Your Mind” (1963)

Marvin Gaye, songs: “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” and “Hitch Hike” (1962,) “Pride and Joy” and “Can I Get a Witness” (1963) and “You’re a Wonderful One,” “Once Upon a Time,” “What’s the Matter with You Baby,” “Try It Baby,” “Baby Don’t You Do It” and “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” (1964)

Well, now you probably understand why I decided to start cutting the decades in half. So much great music . . . And, so much more to come . . . After all, the early 1960s primarily continued the pop and rock ‘n’ roll trend of the 1950s but the second half of the 1960s would see the evolution of rock.

This is the second installment of the “Some of My Favorite Music” series. This time, I’ll be focusing on the 1950s. It was a great decade for music, dominated by doo-wop, country and western, rockabilly, blues, swing, pop, rhythm and blues, and the adolescence of the emerging rock and roll scene that was born in the late 1940s.

Since the last post in this series ended up being something of a list in paragraph form, and the length is even greater this time around, I’m going to make the body of this one a straight up list with the occasional and (hopefully) interesting anecdote.

Patti Page, songs: “Tennessee Waltz” (1950,) “Would I Love You,” “Mockin’ Bird Hill” and “Mister and Mississippi” (1951,) “I Went to Your Wedding,” “You Belong to Me,” “Come What May” and “Once in a While” (1952,) “How Much is That Doggie in the Window” and “Changing Partners” (1953,) “Cross Over the Bridge” (1954,) “Allegheny Moon” (1956) and “Old Cape Cod” (1957.)

Page was the top-charting female vocalist and top-selling female artist of the 1950s.

In a six-decade career, she sold over 100 million records.

Hank Williams, songs: “I Just Don’t Like This Kind of Living,” Long Gone Lonesome Blues,” “Why Don’t You Love Me,” “They’ll Never Take Her Love From Me,” and “Moanin’ The Blues,” (1950,) “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Howlin’ at the Moon,” “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You,” “Hey Good Lookin’,” “Crazy Heart” and “Baby, We’re Really in Love” (1951,) “Honky Tonk Blues,” “Half as Much,” Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” “Settin’ the Woods on Fire” and “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” (1952,) and posthumously, “Kaw-Liga,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” Take These Chains From My Heart” and “I Won’t Be Home No More” (1953.)

Williams delivered seven number one hits in a six-year career before his death at the age of 29.

“Rocket 88” was originally credited to Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats and considered by many to be the first rock and roll record (still hotly debated by rock and roll historians) but, Ike Turner, who plays piano on the track, later disputed the matter, saying that it was he and his band with Jackie Brenston sitting in on vocals, and he won.

Frank Sinatra, songs: “Young at Heart” (1954,) “Love and Marriage” (1955,) “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” (1956,) “All the Way” and the cover of the Rodgers and Hart show tune from the musical Babes In Arms “The Lady is a Tramp” (1957,) “Come Fly with Me” (1958,) and “Cheek to Cheek” (1959)

Probably not even necessary to say this but, Little Richard was a rock and roll pioneer in both performance and music style – even performers like Elton John, Cee Lo Green and rockers like Kiss and Alice Cooper owe him some gratitude.

Cotten was a self-taught, left-handed guitar player who played a right-handed guitar upside down which gave her a unique, signature alternating bass sound that has since become known as “Cotten Picking”

Valens’ recording career only lasted eight months before he tragically died in the same plane crash as Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper

Jerry Lee Lewis, songs: Covers of “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Jambalaya,” “When the Saints Go Marching In” and “Goodnight Irene,” as well as the original “High School Confidential” were all from his first, self-titled album in 1958; Other 1950’s hit singles included “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On” and “Great Balls of Fire” (1957,) and “Breathless” (1958)

The Shirelles, songs: “I Met Him on a Sunday (Ronde-Ronde)” (1958) and their cover of “Dedicated to the One I Love” (1959)

This pop group preceded their biggest hit with “I Wonder Why,” No One Knows,” & “Don’t Pitty Me;”

“A Teenager in Love” was followed up with “Where or When” & “That’s My Desire”

The 1950s came to a tragic end with an event that would later inspire the 1971 smash hit song “American Pie” by Don McLean. The song dubbed the event “the day the music died.” Buddy Holly, who had parted ways with the Crickets toward the end of 1958, had put together a band that consisted of Tommy Allsup, Carl Bunch and Waylon Jennings for his “Winter Dance Party” tour with opening acts Dion & The Belmonts, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. The long, cold bus rides between gigs had left several of the musicians sick and Holly decided to charter a plane.

Dion DiMucci was offered a seat but declined because he said that the $36 cost was too much because that’s what his parents paid for a month of rent in his childhood apartment. The Big Bopper had the flu so, Waylon Jennings gave up his seat for his sick colleague. Valens and Allsup flipped a coin for the final seat and Valens won.

The plane took off from Mason City Iowa at 12:55 am on February 3, 1959 under conditions of light snow, six miles of visibility and 20-30 mile-per-hour winds. Within minutes, radio contact had been lost. Later that morning, the owner of the charter company took off in another plane to retrace the flight path. He spotted the wreckage only six miles northwest of the airport.

Losing The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly was a tragic end to an excellent decade of music and we’ll never know what music we lost with them. However, we do know some of the music we were blessed with because of who did not wind up on that plane. Dion had not recorded “A Teenager in Love” yet and both he and Waylon Jennings were still meant to give us some excellent music in the decade ahead. In fact, for my money, the sixties were even better than the fifties. But, we’ll save that for a future post . . .